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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993744">on reflex</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s'>braigwen_s</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Saikhan Is A Good Bro To Lin And Y'all Can Fight Me On This [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: Legend of Korra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Banter, Fluff with a side of angst, Friendship, Gen, references to drinking</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:41:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>594</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22993744</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/braigwen_s/pseuds/braigwen_s</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lin Beifong &amp; Saikhan, Lin Beifong/Tenzin (referenced)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Saikhan Is A Good Bro To Lin And Y'all Can Fight Me On This [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1225568</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>on reflex</h2></a>
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    <p>It had been bound to happen to Saikhan, sooner or later.  His father had been completely bald by thirty, and he was pushing twenty-five. Still, he decided sourly as he pushed open the paper door to the Chief’s office, mountain of signing and reading in his arms, that didn’t mean he had to like it.</p><p>“Where is your hair running off to?” Lin asked him, instead of “thanks for getting these to me”.  Honestly?  It had to be today she brought it up?  Her eyes raked over his thinning scalp, and he glared, angling his head away but meeting her gaze defiantly.  He had the winning card in his hand: the Air Nation Councilman, and the wildflowers sitting in a vase on her desk.  The fact that he’d caught them making out like teenagers just last week didn’t hurt his case, either. </p><p>“I thought you liked your men without it.”</p><p>Her eyes widened, and her cheeks turned from waxen to bright red.  He bit down on his cheek against laughter.  She slammed one hand down on the desk, scattering the papers he’d just placed there.  “Out.  Get out!”</p><p>He grinned at her, crouching down instead to gather up the paper.  She kicked out at him savagely, and he jerked his chin back, only just fast enough to miss the iron sole of her boot.  He flipped back onto his haunches, and raised his eyebrows at her.  The humour was gone from him.  “You’re lucky I’m too quick to have my jaw broken,” he said calmly.  All the anger flashed from her.  Her eyes widened again, but the shock was at herself, not him.  One hand trailed up to her own jaw, skitting over the the red, angry, raised lines there.</p><p>“Sai, I … I’m sorry.  There was no excuse for that.”</p><p>“There is, but,” he said gently, placing a requisition form neatly over an arrest report.  “You grew up giving it back hard as you got, and from I hear that was pretty damn hard.  I figure you might forget us commoners aren’t made of steel.”</p><p>She scrunched up her face at him.  She looked like she was about to cry, which Saikhan hated.  It was a joke, they’d both been joking.  He shouldn’t have brought it up, not in the moment.  Maybe later, over drinks, in that musty little Water Tribe bar - Irri’s, wasn’t it - in the Southerners’ enclave.  “That’s still not an excuse,” she said.</p><p>“If you insist, ma’am,” he replied.  She hated being called ‘ma’am’ (he’d once witnessed her asked her pronouns.  She’d replied “don’t talk about me,” but then said just to call her ‘chief’), and he hoped that his permission to continue their bickering, to not draw back for fear she’d hurt him, came across.</p><p>She frowned at him, so to his relief it had.  “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘milady Beifong,’ commoner?”  Her words dripped with bitterness, but it was directed at those who addressed like that, not him.  </p><p>He presented her a stack of paper with an overblown flourish.  “If you never mention my hair again, I’ll do the other half of the forms.”</p><p>She ducked her head, her own hair swinging forward.  There was a streak of silver in the black, that he’d never noticed before.  Maybe she was touchy about that, herself.  She clasped his hands, their steel-and-brass gauntlets clinking.  She’d always been one for a firm handshake, but he was still going to have bruised fingers.  “Deal, Captain Saikhan.  See you at Irri’s to go over them?”</p><p>He smiled, and then saluted.  “Yes, Chief.”</p>
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